THE INCIDENCE OF ALCOHOL ABUSE AMONG TEENAGERS IN RUMUOGBA COMMUNITY, OBIO/AKPOR L.G.A RIVERS STATE

ABSTRACT

This study was carried out on the incidence of alcohol abuse among teenagers in Rumuogba community, Obio/Akpor L.G.A Rivers State. The use of alcohol at this critical age can lead to serious health outcomes such as causing harm to body organs such as the liver and sometimes injuries. A quantitative cross sectional descriptive survey design was used. Cluster sampling of 392 SSS1 and SSS2 students between the ages of 15 to 19 years from two selected schools in the study area completed a structured questionnaire. Data was analyzed using SPSS 20.0 software and results presented in frequency tables. Test of association and correlation between explanatory variables and the outcome of interest was done using chi-square. The study showed that alcohol use prevalence was 35% and the types of alcoholic beverage preferred by the respondents were beer and wine. Significantly, there was very low effect of alcohol use and curiosity was the reason for alcohol intake. The principal influencing factors of alcohol use was advertisement and peer pressure. The study therefore concluded that alcohol use still remains a problem among teenagers. However, a comparison of the two schools used in the study revealed that there was no significant recording that may suggest a difference in prevalence, effects, influence of alcohol use among the two schools.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Alcohol has many uses and carries contrasting connotations. A glass of wine shared at a meal can symbolise love, friendship, relaxation, and the enjoyment of a special occasion. It can represent romance, coming of age, success, beginnings and endings, good news, and good company. At the Christian Eucharist or the Jewish Passover, where wine is also shared, thanks are given to God for divine salvation from all that enslaves, restricts, and condemns. In drinking the wine, Christians participate with the first disciples in the Last Supper with Christ, just as Jews participate with the ancient Hebrews in their exodus from bondage in Egypt.

In African tradition, wine is used to portray a relationship and communion between the living, the ancestors, deities, and other supernatural entities. Alcohol has long occupied a central place in African religious belief, serving as a medium through which the living communicate with the ancestors, and it continues to feature prominently in marriage rites, kingship enthronements, cultural festivals, child-naming ceremonies, covenant establishment, oath-taking, the daily ritual of libation, burial rites, and the institution of shrines and altars (Ademiluka, 2020). Even where Pentecostal churches in Africa – Nigeria being a typical example – vehemently oppose its use, alcoholic wine remains almost indispensable at marriage ceremonies among many ethnic groups. Among the Tiv and Idoma peoples of Benue State, for instance, alcohol is deeply woven into social life, so much so that alcoholics are found in large numbers in the drinking joints and bars that dot their communities, with far-reaching consequences for family stability and child welfare (Uroko, 2023).

Unfortunately, the sacredness and redemptive symbolism attached to these occasions contrast sharply with the association of alcohol with drunken violence in towns and cities, cirrhosis of the liver on medical wards, debt in families, carnage on the roads, and domestic strife. It contrasts still more starkly with the bondage that is alcohol abuse or alcohol addiction. This contrasting nature of alcoholic drink is revealed clearly in different chapters and verses of the Hebrew Scripture, the Old Testament. Serious warnings were placed on the need to avoid addiction and inordinate desire for alcoholic wine. In some instances, people were strictly warned not to taste alcoholic wine or to partake in meals connected with it. Nazarites such as Samson (Jdg 13:7), princes (Prv 31:4), and the Rechabite family (Jr 35) fell into this category. The book of Proverbs 23:29–35, which is the focus of this research, portrays and analyses the state, condition, and ordeal of the alcoholic drinker, and the problem of addiction, which remains strikingly relevant in the contemporary era. Modern exegetes note that the passage’s six rhetorical questions in verse 29 draw attention to three kinds of trouble that intoxication brings – emotional distress, social conflict, and physical injury – while verses 31 to 35 trace the seductive lure of wine through to its bitter, serpent-like aftermath (Ademiluka, 2020).

In more purely statistical and objective terms, alcohol misuse is a contemporary social problem of enormous economic significance, exacting a heavy toll of human suffering through social, psychological, and medical harm. According to the World Health Organization’s most recent global status report, 2.6 million deaths worldwide were attributable to alcohol consumption in 2019 alone, representing 4.7% of all deaths globally, while an estimated 400 million people were living with alcohol and other substance use disorders (World Health Organization [WHO], 2024). Alcohol-related morbidity and mortality remain high across most of the world, and in developing nations such as Nigeria, alcohol consumption and its concomitant harms are on the increase. A synthesis of recent epidemiological studies conducted between 2015 and 2023 shows Nigerian youth drinking prevalence climbing from about 30% to as high as 55.8% over less than a decade (Dumbili, 2024). Similarly, a systematic review and meta-analysis of alcohol use across sub-Saharan Africa found a lifetime prevalence of 24.7% and a six-month prevalence of 11.9% among adolescents aged 10 to 17 (Belete et al., 2024). Yet moderate alcohol consumption continues to be tolerated, enjoyed, and even encouraged, with the majority of the adult population drinking alcohol in almost every country other than those with a predominantly Islamic culture.

What are we to make of these observations? It is easy to project blame to a safe distance by arguing that the problem is the responsibility of other people or of forces beyond our control. Government, industry, and moderate drinkers can blame a majority of irresponsible citizens for their excesses; the beverage alcohol industry can easily be blamed for promoting a product that causes so much harm; or the product itself can be blamed and made the subject of prohibition, on the assumption that everyone would be better off if it were not consumed at all in civilised society.

Perhaps no one needs to be blamed at all. Rather than treating the matter purely as a question of irresponsibility, whether on the part of drinkers or promoters, contemporary addiction science increasingly frames the problem in terms of disease. The United States National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, for instance, now defines alcohol use disorder as a chronic, relapsing brain disease characterised by an impaired ability to stop or control drinking, a condition rooted in measurable, pathological changes to the brain’s reward and stress systems produced by repeated heavy alcohol use (Donato & Ray, 2023). Understood this way, some people are exceptionally vulnerable to a condition that impairs their judgement, self-control, and moral and spiritual integrity in a far more fundamental way than simple carelessness would suggest; and, at the risk of oversimplifying matters, this condition might be called alcohol abuse or addiction.

Viewing alcohol abuse or addiction, therefore, as a disease, or rather a cankerworm that has eaten deep into the fabric of teenagers’ lives and of society at large, one has to look for a remedy that will offer permanent healing or, at the very least, reduce the menace to the barest minimum. What is glaring, however, is how many curative methods applied to halt the pandemic of alcohol addiction have failed. Nigeria’s own recent experience with regulatory intervention illustrates the difficulty. Since 2018, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has sought, through a series of moratoria and deadlines eventually set for December 2025, to phase out the sale of alcoholic beverages in sachets and in bottles smaller than 200 millilitres, precisely because such cheap, easily concealed packaging has been linked to a high rate of underage access; a national survey commissioned by the agency found that roughly half of Nigerian minors who drink obtain the alcohol themselves, and that close to half of them favour sachets specifically because they are easy to conceal (NAFDAC, 2026). Yet, at nearly every deadline, the ban has been resisted, suspended, or renegotiated by manufacturers and their allies in the legislature, illustrating how difficult it is for law alone to arrest a problem of this magnitude. Similar patterns exist in other societies: legal prohibition in many Islamic states has often proved only partly effective, as people devise alternative means of falling back into the pit of addiction, while bans placed on particular alcohol producers or advertisers have frequently been circumvented by the local production of unregulated substitutes.

However, the Hebrew Scripture offers principles, precepts, and admonitions whose strict observance, adherence, and application can bring the menace of alcohol abuse in society to a halt. The reason is that Scripture touches the heart of man and answers the deeper questions of the inner life in a way that human law, by its nature, is not designed to do. Whereas civil law and government policy address the immediate, external symptoms of a social problem, and their solutions therefore tend to be temporary and easily circumvented, as the sachet-alcohol saga in Nigeria illustrates, a text such as Proverbs 23:29–35 is aimed at the root of the matter: the desires, habits, and character of the individual drinker. Indeed, contemporary pastoral theology increasingly recognises that any lasting response to alcoholism must attend to its spiritual dimension alongside its medical and social ones, since studies of faith-based recovery consistently find that spiritual and religious engagement is associated with better outcomes among people in treatment for substance use disorders (Ademiluka, 2020). The problem of alcohol abuse, then, is not fundamentally different from other human problems to which Scripture has offered a lasting solution.

This study analyses the incidence of alcohol abuse among teenagers in Rumuogba community, Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State, Nigeria, using the scriptural tool presented in Proverbs 23:29–35. Among all the books of the Bible that address alcohol, the book of Proverbs, in various chapters and verses (Prv 23:20–21; 20:1), offers the most extensive commentary on wine and alcohol, but Proverbs 23:29–35 has the longest and most vivid treatment of any single passage and therefore stands as the most appropriate exegetical tool for this research. Lessons drawn from the text will be applied to the Nigerian situation with regard to alcohol abuse, and a scripturally grounded solution will be proposed.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

There is no issue of greater concern in our society today, whether to health, industry, state, or church, national or family life, than that of alcohol and its effects. Scientific research, history, and human observation have all shown clearly that alcohol abuse is a problem that must be approached from several directions at once; no single attitude or field of service can operate independently with complete success.

The level of alcohol addiction in Nigeria is growing at a geometric pace, and the rate of consumption is alarming. Nigeria’s national adult per capita alcohol consumption has been estimated at 12.3 litres, placing it among the highest-consuming countries in Africa, and harmful alcohol use is now reckoned among the leading causes of disability and death in the country (Aremu, Anibijuwon, John-Akinola, Oluwasanu, & Oladepo, 2023). A recent qualitative study of young drinkers in Benin City, in the same geopolitical zone as the community under study in this research, found that most participants consumed between three and twelve bottles of beer, stout, or other alcoholic drinks on a single occasion, and that many suffered repeated bouts of vomiting, hangovers, abdominal pain, and incapacitating illness as a direct consequence, even though they were well aware of the risks (Dumbili & Swahn, 2024). Whereas young people in many Western countries are increasingly abstaining from alcohol or cutting back once they understand its consequences, the same study found that Nigerian youths, by contrast, are adopting lifestyles that glamorise heavy drinking and normalise intoxication as a marker of status among peers (Dumbili & Swahn, 2024).

Wondering at this increasing craving for alcoholic drink, one can readily foresee the corresponding health, psychological, social, and economic dangers it poses to Nigeria. In some respects the situation resembles the problem of HIV/AIDS, in that everyone is either infected or affected, directly or indirectly, and the matter therefore requires general attention. Besides, the woes that befall victims of alcohol abuse, including family separation, psychological trauma, serious illness, financial hardship, road accidents, and death, have never served as a sufficient deterrent to the next generation of drinkers. The more people are affected, the greater, paradoxically, seems to be the appetite for “mixed wine” among those coming up behind them.

The government’s own recent efforts illustrate how intractable the problem has become. NAFDAC’s long campaign to phase out sachet and small-bottle alcohol, first proposed in 2018 and still being contested nearly eight years later, has repeatedly stalled in the face of industry lobbying and legislative intervention, even as national survey data cited by the agency show that roughly half of Nigerian minors obtain alcohol on their own initiative, most often precisely because sachets and small plastic bottles are cheap and easy to hide from parents and teachers (NAFDAC, 2026). If a single, narrowly defined regulatory measure of this kind can generate years of resistance and delay, the broader difficulty of curbing alcohol abuse in Nigerian society as a whole becomes easier to appreciate.

Also, the taste and nature of many alcoholic drinks in Nigeria raise pointed questions. It has been observed that different brands of beer are notably bitter and local gins notoriously strong, yet the rate of consumption remains unbearably high. This is evident in bars and drinking joints where a single individual may consume a crate of beer, or more, and stagger home without reckoning the cost, whether financial or physical.

Therefore, several critical questions arise. What are the principal factors responsible for the high consumption of alcohol among teenagers in Nigerian society? What measures have been taken to curb this social menace, and what results have they yielded? Where those measures have proved ineffective, what accounts for the failure? Who bears the greater causative responsibility for the problem: producers, promoters, or consumers? If earlier measures against alcohol abuse have failed, are there new measures, drawn perhaps from sources outside the conventional legal and regulatory framework, that might be added to achieve a more lasting result? And, if other institutions have faltered in their attempts, what role remains for the church to play in combating this evil that has befallen Nigerian society, particularly among its teenagers?

The researcher regards this state of affairs as a societal hurdle requiring a deliberate and multi-pronged approach. Left unresolved, these questions will only foster the further spread of this social ill. The present study, to a reasonable extent, analyses these issues and proposes solutions grounded in the text of Proverbs 23:29–35 as applied to the specific context of Rumuogba community.

1.3 Objective of the Study

The main objective of this study is to examine the incidence of alcohol abuse among teenagers in Rumuogba community, Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State, Nigeria.

The problem of alcohol has, in other words, been known for millennia, stretching back from the time of Noah to the time of Solomon, who gave the instruction concerning wine and strong drink examined in this study; the Nigerian situation, in that sense, is not new. If Scripture offered a solution to the ancient audience of Proverbs, this work applies that same solution to the contemporary Nigerian situation, with the intention of contributing meaningfully toward a lasting remedy.

The following are the specific objectives of the study:

1. To assess the prevalence of alcohol use among the teenagers.

2. To identify the types of alcohol consumed by the teenagers.

3. To determine the perceived effects of alcohol use among the teenagers.

4. To determine the factors that influence alcohol use among the teenagers.

1.4 Research Questions

1. What is the prevalence of alcohol use among students in the selected senior secondary schools?

2. What types of alcohol do students in the senior secondary schools use?

3. What are the perceived effects of alcohol use among the teenagers?

4. What are the factors that influence alcohol use among the teenagers?

1.5 Significance of the Study

This work is important, first, to the addicted person, in that it offers a clearer picture of his or her situation, the harm alcohol abuse has caused, and a possible way out. There is considerable difficulty in breaking free from addiction to any substance, and alcohol addiction is no exception; this work, it is hoped, will serve as a hammer that breaks the stumbling block of alcoholic addiction.

Furthermore, the study is significant to the church, in that it challenges and spurs church leaders and members to action in combating alcohol abuse and its ruinous effect on Nigerian society. Recent scholarship on Proverbs 23:29–35 argues that the passage equips the church with the awareness that alcoholics are present not only in the wider society but within the congregation itself, and proposes that churches establish structured alcohol-recovery programmes – built around compassionate teaching, professional counselling, and support groups modelled on Alcoholics Anonymous – as a concrete response to the problem (Ademiluka, 2020). This is not merely a theoretical proposal: individual clergy in Nigeria have already begun to model such engagement. One Catholic priest, for example, has organised addiction-counselling training for fellow clergy and written extensively about his own recovery from alcoholism, arguing that unaddressed addiction within the church undermines its wider work of evangelism (Saint, 2024). The clergy, then, may be motivated by this study to herald a gospel of deliverance from alcohol abuse, while the laity are encouraged to carry that message to the grassroots, into the bars, joints, and drinking centres where teenagers are most exposed.

To psychologists, health workers, and social workers, the study offers a compass with which to navigate the life and situation of clients caught in alcohol abuse. It is hoped that this will inject fresh hope and energy into their ongoing efforts against alcoholic addiction and related challenges, and that the proper application of the principles set out here, together with the professional expertise such workers already bring, will help produce social change.

The families of drunkards, and other individuals and organisations affected by alcohol abuse, are not left out. This study will serve as an aid to developing a proper, informed approach to those under this condition, functioning as a manual that strengthens their ability to instruct, counsel, and support an alcohol-abusing relative or associate.

1.6 Scope of the Study

The study concentrates on the incidence of alcohol abuse among teenagers and its effects on Nigerian society. Contemporary society is challenged by a range of addictions and dependencies, including alcohol and hard drugs such as cocaine, nicotine, marijuana, and other substances. Common observation, corroborated by recent epidemiological reviews showing alcohol to be by far the most widely used psychoactive substance among adolescents across sub-Saharan Africa (Belete et al., 2024), suggests that people addicted to alcohol in Nigeria substantially outnumber those addicted to any other single substance. This consideration motivates the researcher to limit the scope of the study to alcoholic wine and alcohol abuse, enabling an in-depth examination of alcohol’s effects on Nigerian society. Issues concerning non-alcoholic beverages and other dependence-forming substances are therefore not treated in this work.

Moreover, the Nigerian environment and society serve as the location of this study, with direct reference to states in the southern part of the country, including Rivers State, where the sampled community of Rumuogba is located. The problem of alcohol abuse is a global one, with diverse effects across different societies, and Nigeria shares fully in this problem; reference may occasionally be made to other countries, but Nigeria remains the central focus and the primary source of first-hand data.

1.7 Definition of Terms

Effect

Effect may be defined broadly as a change or a changed state occurring as the direct result of an action by somebody or something else; it is the outcome, whether positive or negative, that follows from a given cause (Merriam-Webster, 2026). In research more specifically, an effect is typically understood as the observable change in one condition that can be traced to, or associated with, a prior condition or exposure, a usage reflected in the common research distinction between a “cause” or predictor and its measurable “effect” or outcome. In this study, the term refers to the observable consequences – physical, psychological, social, or academic – that follow from teenagers’ use of alcohol.

Alcohol Abuse

There are various definitions of alcohol abuse; some are based on causal factors, others on operational or clinical criteria. The United States National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism now defines alcohol use disorder – the clinical term that has largely superseded the older label “alcohol abuse” – as a chronic, relapsing brain disease characterised by an impaired ability to stop or control alcohol consumption despite its harmful consequences (Donato & Ray, 2023). More broadly, alcohol abuse can be described as any use of alcoholic beverages that causes damage to the individual, to society, or to both. It is a broad term for problems with alcohol, generally used to describe compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages to the detriment of the drinker’s health, personal relationships, and social standing. Medically, it is considered a disorder rooted in changes to the brain’s reward and stress circuitry that occur with repeated heavy use, and it can be accompanied by tolerance, withdrawal, and a persistent inability to cut down despite a stated desire to do so (Donato & Ray, 2023). The World Health Organization further situates alcohol abuse within the wider global burden of substance use disorders, noting that alcohol use disorders and related conditions affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide and remain a leading contributor to preventable death and disability (WHO, 2024).

Society

Society may be understood as a group of people related to one another through persistent relations, or as a large social grouping occupying a shared geographical or virtual territory and subject to a common political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Contemporary sociological theory situates such groupings along a spectrum running from small-scale, face-to-face interaction, through formal organisations, to society as the most encompassing social system within which interaction and organisation both take place (Kühl, 2020). In this study, “society” refers primarily to Nigerian society in general, and to the Rumuogba community of Obio/Akpor Local Government Area, Rivers State, in particular.

Church

The word “church” is derived from the Greek term ekklesia, formed from the preposition ek (“out of”) and the verb kaleo (“to call”), and is most literally rendered “a called-out assembly” or “congregation” (Rashid, 2020). In the New Testament, the term is used in several senses: it can refer to a local gathering of believers in a particular place, to the sum of all local congregations understood collectively, or to the universal body of Christ comprising all believers across time and space. The New Testament offers a number of complementary images for the church, describing it, among other things, as the body of Christ, the bride of Christ, and a branch of the true vine. In this study, “church” refers broadly to Christian congregations and denominations operating within Nigerian society, and to the role such bodies might play in responding to the problem of alcohol abuse among teenagers.

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